Recently, while looking at various AI agent tools, I increasingly feel that there's something particularly awkward — these so-called AIs that can work automatically, when faced with money issues, instantly regress ten years.
Think about the mainstream practices now:
🤖 Let AI 'borrow' your personal API key to operate
📁 Store company credit card information in a shared configuration file
🔑 An employee leaves, and the whole team frantically rotates keys
Isn't this just putting a 24/7 working robot in the shackles of a human office worker? They call it 'automation', but it's still humans behind the scenes acting as caretakers. If AI causes trouble, all your assets are exposed; if a configuration goes wrong, the losses could be irretrievable.
The root of the problem is clear: we have always let AI “pretend to be human” to handle funds, rather than acknowledging that they are independent digital entities.
It's like giving your home cleaning robot a real key to your house, rather than giving it a time-limited, area-limited smart access card. Just thinking about it can make you lose sleep, right?
KITE AI's solution is straightforward: give AI a “temporary work badge,” but do not give them “full access cards.”
KITE is essentially a blockchain built specifically for AI agents. Its core idea is remarkably clear:
Design the system considering AI as “first-class citizens,” rather than making them disguise as humans.
How is this specifically implemented? Through a three-layer identity model:
You (human) — You are the boss, responsible for setting the rules, establishing budgets, and holding final authority.
Agent (AI) — Each AI has its own independent digital identity, recognized by the system like a formal employee.
Session — This is not a permanent authorization. It is a “one-time task authorization” you give to the AI, clearly stating:
How much money can be used for this task (for example, up to $50)
Who it can interact with (for example, payments can only be made to service providers A and B)
How long the task is valid (for example, within the next 2 hours)
AI can only operate within this pre-defined “box.” When the time is up or the budget is used up, permissions automatically expire.
What’s clever about this design? It isolates risks. Even if a certain AI agent is attacked, makes a logical error, or simply “goes crazy,” its destructive range is limited to the current “session box.” Your main wallet and core assets will not be affected at all.
This transforms the question from “Can I trust this robot?” to “How much and how long should I authorize this robot to complete this specific task?” The shift in mindset is the essence of security enhancement.
Create a payment system for AI's consumption habits, rather than forcing AI to learn human reimbursement.
AI's consumption method is completely different from that of humans.
We humans prefer “batch processing”: reimbursement at the end of the month, quarterly subscription payments, collecting a pile of invoices to apply together.
But AI is “stream processing”:
☕ Every time an API is called, a micropayment is generated.
🔄 For continuous services (like real-time data streams), small continuous deductions are made.
🚨 Once an anomaly is detected, payments can be immediately stopped.
KITE's payment logic is designed for this kind of “steady flow” machine consumption. An AI data agent does not need to pre-load a large amount of money; it can pay while acquiring data, with the system ensuring it does not overspend in the background.
It feels like equipping AI with a “prepaid meter,” rather than throwing it a credit card with no limit.
Weld the guardrail into the protocol instead of posting slogans on the wall.
Many security rules in AI management tools are “soft constraints” placed in some backend panel. Only when something goes wrong do we realize the rules were not strictly enforced.
KITE's approach is to write the rules directly into the blockchain protocol, turning them into “hard constraints”:
“This customer service AI can return a maximum of 50 orders per day, totaling no more than 5000 yuan” — Enforced on-chain.
“That marketing AI can only pay to the approved vendor list” — Not on the list? The transaction will not happen at all.
“All AI must stop trading for 8 hours at midnight UTC” — Automatically go into sleep mode when the time is up.
Security no longer relies on the AI's “self-awareness” or the developer's “forgetting to configure,” but is guaranteed by the underlying network. This is the foundation of trustworthy automation.
Let every transaction of AI carry a “watermark,” no longer a muddled account.
The most headache-inducing aspect of AI automation is when problems arise. A strange fee appears, and everyone is asking:
“Which AI did this? When did it do it? Did it have the authority to do so at that time?”
In the KITE system, because each AI has an independent identity and each operation is linked to a specific “session,” all actions are traceable. You can see clearly like auditing:
Subject: “AI Customer Service - No. 07”
Time: In yesterday's 3 PM “Holiday Promotion Session”
Behavior: Paid 5 fees to “Logistics Partner C,” $8 each
Basis: The budget for this session was $50, and Partner C is on the permission list.
For businesses, this is not just a technical convenience, but a pressing need for auditing and compliance. The vague “robotic operations” have become clear, auditable chains of responsibility.
Summary: KITE is not about “replacement,” but about “how to safely let go.”
KITE has shown me a more realistic future for AI. It does not advocate “full delegation,” but has designed a refined delegation framework.
Its goal is not to make AI omnipotent, but to allow humans to confidently let AI handle tedious, repetitive processes that involve real money — such as paying API call fees, managing cloud service subscriptions, and settling small invoices...
If AI really wants to integrate into our economic life, then infrastructure like KITE that acknowledges AI's autonomous identity, is designed for machine collaboration, and embeds security mechanisms into its core, may not be optional but rather a necessity.
What it provides is not a flashy sci-fi experience, but a set of foundational rules that make the next step of scalable application possible. When one day AI agents easily handle various daily transactions, we will look back and see that designs like KITE may seem so natural — just like TCP/IP for the internet, silent yet indispensable.
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